Siren in the Deep
by Purple Mongoose
Summary: [One Piece/Sailor Moon] Infamous bounty hunter Roronoa Zoro is suddenly thrust into a situation he never dreamed he would be: for a paid year, he must protect a young woman of a most unusual nature. [Zoro/Ami] [On Hold]
1. Siren: Author's Notes

Siren in the Deep

by Purple Mongoose/PallaPlease

Author's Notes 

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        **Series:  One Piece, Sailor Moon**

        **Characters:  **Roronoa Zoro, Ami Mizuno (respectively)

        **Genre:  **Action/Adventure, Romance

        **Rating:  **PG (crude insinuations), gradually moving to R (language, violence, sexuality)

        **Continuity:  **(One Piece) Before the series begins, (Sailor Moon) none at all (so far as I know…)

        **Setting:  **One Piece universe

        **Beta Reader:  **None at moment (accepting applications - *winks* - at alien_wolf@sailorjupiter.com) 

**        Summary:  **[One Piece/Sailor Moon]  Infamous bounty hunter Roronoa Zoro is suddenly thrust into a situation he never dreamed he would be: for a paid year, he must protect a young woman of a most unusual nature.  [an ami mizuno romance]

        **Disclaimer:  **Characters that did not come from my own imagination belong to their respective owners, as does the world I used as the setting.  The fic idea is mine, the story is mine, and I think the coupling might be mine, too.  0o;

        **Distribution:  **www.fanfiction.net

        **Notes:  **I haven't seen one of these around on fanfiction.net ('these' being One Piece/Sailor Moon fanfics), and since I had the oddest idea just appear in my head, I decided I might as well write.  While I'm holding out on writing 'Ayatsuriningyou' (my Shaman King crossover) due to apparent lack of exposure for the Mankin series, I want to post this.  'One Piece' does seem to be a bit wider spread than Mankin, so, after all, why not? 

      Most characters that I pair Ami with in stories are either serious intellectuals or lighthearted goofs (all with a flirtatious side), but I have never attempted writing her with a character like Roronoa Zoro.  Zoro is relatively antisocial, prone to cruel sarcasm, violent outbreaks, and a derogatory attitude that could crush a lesser spirit.  However, don't make the mistake of assuming he's heartless – because he isn't.  He cares about people, he has a defined sense of right and wrong, and he is Badass.  And that, my readers, is why Zoro is cool.

        That and he can sword fight with his mouth.  I'd like to see Trunks try that.  

        Purple Mongoose/PallaPlease.

        March 17, 2003.


	2. Siren: A Jealous Lover

Siren in the Deep 

by Purple Mongoose/PallaPlease

A Jealous Lover 

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        _Once there was a man of such skill with the blade he was without equal, unparalleled in his ability to mete out death.  The shine of his sword, it was said, could not be of a natural light, for even in the dark did it glow a most unusual glow.  T'was blood, the men in taverns often whispered, blood used to accentuate the sheen and create the devilish light that always sought to escape the blade's surface.  Still other stories claimed he was the devil himself, an incarnate representation of that greatest evil.  Never once did he attempt to state the stories false._

_        It was during a trip to a small hamlet on the southern coast of the continent spotted with lush forests that he met a girl of humble beauty and brilliant intelligence.  From her, he often would claim bitterly later, he learned nothing but the pains of love one did not receive in return; she loved another, who was a simple man just as she was a woman of unrivaled thought.  This, though, was not a truth, for she taught many other things and she did not love the man she was to wed.  _

_        One of the many stories told of the swordsman was of his stone heart, that he loved none and none loved him.  He was a murderer, the men in the town warned her as she taught the children their lessons, and she ought to avoid him.  The blood of a thousand men rested on his head and he showed no remorse for the things he had done.  She did not believe their words, though she agreed to keep a distant acquaintanceship with him, and so she never said much to him for the course of a month through the twelve months they knew one another.  Welcomes and farewells were rare, as he made sure to follow her wherever she went, even as they rarely spoke to each other.  _

_        The girl was a stranger in the hamlet, found wandering in the shallow waves of the lapping ocean when she was but a child.  She had been raised in part by every man and woman in the coastal town fringed by trees, and she had no memory of who she was or where she came from, so this made her a stranger still.  The children, being innocent as all children are at some point in their young lives, adored her every word and she knew instinctively she belonged with the children.  This was why she taught the children strange things the villagers believed she had learned before she had been lost in the sea.  _

_        With the swordsman, though, he knew what she denied vehemently when she thought herself alone, that she belonged with him even more.  To bear his children was a foolish dream, she often scolded quietly, finding her lips betraying her with a smile or a reproving jest when she was near the man with the devil's sword.  The man she was to marry would finally bring her peace in the village, giving her a name to lay claim as her own, children to root her blood into the village and make it old.  Then could she truly be one of the hamlet's content denizens._

_        But she was not content, no matter what she said otherwise, and her words grew more and more frequent with the swordsman, who welcomed them and responded with his deep, curt replies.  The children saw what no others saw, that their beloved instructor had fallen in love over the course of seven months, a gradual stepping down a path until suddenly it grew too steep for her small feet and she plummeted.  He would catch her, they knew, and she would not fall, but she would be enveloped in love, and even the boys thought it was a beautiful thing._

_        One night, when ten months had come and scattered, the swordsman came to speak with her and he left with a brush of his mouth across hers.  Her cheeks were scraped with the blood of roses and she pushed him away, running to the sands she had been found wandering, lost and waiting for something she had not found.  He hurt, of course, the rejection stinging, but he was also an impatient man, and he knew she loved him as he loved her.  Marriage he could not offer her, yet he could feel in his essence it did not matter so long as she was his in heart and body; when both are given freely, the soul joins as well._

_        It was nearly another month before she allowed him another kiss, and it did not end until the morning's sun rose in quiet understanding.  The first night the swordsman spent in her room meant more than the touch of bodies, but the joining of something far deeper.  Now she admitted to loving him and she saw him smile, a pure twist of his lips, and they spent every night together, not always satisfying a carnal longing, but a tender one that simply needed the other's presence._

_        One of the children talked too loud one morn as the twelfth month drew close to an end, for she had seen the girl and the swordsman embracing in the woods and had not understood.  Questioning the man the girl was meant to wed, she unknowingly caused the anger to flow in his blood.  He challenged the swordsman to a rightful duel, but while he chose a day on which to have it, his anger caused him to slap the girl.  On the spot, before the girl and the village, the swordsman, who had earned a place in the village over the arduous time, slew the man.  _

_        And when the girl began to weep, he thought she shed tears for the man he had slain and he left the village, turning on his heel and stepping numbly away.  The villagers let him pass, too shocked, too horrified, to stop his steady motions, and only the child had presence of mind enough to cry for him to stop.  She did not weep for the man, the child forced from her lungs as the swordsman diminished into the horizon, she wept for knowing you will leave!  But he did not hear, and thusly did the swordsman never return, for he was a foolish, jealous lover._

_        This is not the truth of the tale as the youngest of children learn it.  Youthful lovers are often reminded of the swordsman's folly and the girl's unsolved enigma, to shepherd them from mistakes and keep them careful to the point that they might forget love.  Details were lost over time and the story changed, until even names had been forgotten, and people who had not existed were brought into being._

_        The swordsman was a curious man of intimidating stature and lean muscle, one whose name of Roronoa Zoro rings yet in other legends, for none believe he would be the man in a romantic tale.  He loved a girl, of the name Ami from an unknown tongue, and a year they spent with one another, and though it ended in tragedy of a different sort, it ended yet in tragedy.  Their happy ending, however, was not forgotten by God: it was merely put off for a few years, but this, too, was lost to time._

_        Of course, as it is a tale of swords and magic, and, perhaps most importantly, that the greatest adventure is love itself, it must begin in such a manner:_

"Once there was a girl…"

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        **Feedback:  **Appreciate it.  :]

        **Disclaimer:  **Still applies.

        **Notes:  **Got the formatting fixed.  :]


	3. Siren: Tide's Child

Siren in the Deep 

by Purple Mongoose/PallaPlease

Tide's Child 

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        _She was found wandering the streaming tide of the ocean, absently sliding small feet through the sand slicked by the waves slowly receding.  The sunset reflected along her dark hair, lighting on the navy blue shadows caressing her short locks and tinging her white shirt a rosier gold color.  "Hello," she called with a sweet smile as she walked, not seeing the bewildered look on the tall woman's countenance and continuing on her way.  The child was pale, a shade of whitened peach not found near the ocean but within it, as the deeper fish could attest to, and the woman shook off her surprise, skittering down the grass-spotted dune to the beach._

_        "Girl," the woman cried and the child stopped, turning around to cock her head to one side in a show of open curiosity.  "Are your parents near or have you gotten lost?" she asked, panting a little as she ran in the sweltering folds of her skirt to the girl watching quietly.  She exhaled deeply once more and straightened her back, smoothing over her apron and breathing evenly._

_        The child's eyes glittered and seemed to drift wearily into an emotion older than her few years, crossing her arms over her chest and hugging herself in a steadying manner.  "I think I've always been lost," she answered in a voice with the bluntness of childhood, mingled in with a deep sadness.  "I don't think I have parents," she continued, fixing her dark blue eyes to the woman's grey-flecked green, "'cause I'm alone.  I don't even have a name, I don't think."_

_        "Oh, you poor dear," the woman gasped and she scooped the child into her arms, holding her lovingly to her bodice as the girl buried her face in the woman's shoulder.  The sun tainted everything with a shifting twist of orange, the gold fading into nothing as the redder shades came into existence gradually.  "Here, I'll take you back to town with me, is that all right?"  She felt the girl nod silently and, picking her way back to the tip of the dune, stepping over the basket filled with blackberries she had spilled in a hurry to see the girl, made her way slowly toward the village._

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        Prying fingers thrust into the sticky warm swell of the dough, kneading the lumps with practiced roughness until they dissolved amidst the smooth rest of it, and Makoto smiled as she tapped into the hefty barrel she had lifted onto an aged table.  Her adoptive daughter frowned minutely, her finely edged concentration focused absolutely on the chore at hand, digging at the dough to form a presentable loaf for placing in the hearth.  Setting a row of carefully crafted glass mugs around the front of the barrel, she placed one under the mouth of the faucet she had wound through the tightly built wood to catch the droplets dripping fractionally from it.  "That looks about right," she said loud enough for her voice to carry across the empty room, the words fuzzing into a brief echo due to the lack of customers in the minutes before the tavern opened for business.  "You can stick it in the hearth with the other baking, Ami."

        The girl with cropped hair started and nodded, smiling with cheeks burnt by the harsh sun and the blazing hearth fire, quickly molding the dough.  She gingerly picked it up and moved it to the clay paddle used for sticking things into the dangerous fire, twisting the wavering weight over the flame and wiggling the handle so the loaf shifted onto the tablet shelf.  Removing the paddle and tucking the heavy grill over the cooking hearth shut, she placed the large utensil on the inner counter of the bar and picked at the cords of her overly loose apron.  "Mama, you don't look too well," she noted, feeling an uneasy anxiety at the few wrinkles forming on the woman's face, thin rivers of silver hair threading through the waves of long brown hair.  "Are you okay?  You know you just got over that sickness."  Ignoring the gently amused look on her mother's face, she worked her hands in the small shelves behind the bar, hidden by the counter.  A small amber bottle was pulled forth and she snatched up a shot glass, popping out the tiny cork in the bottle's neck and tipping a small amount of the brown liquid into the clear cup.

        "Oh, dearie," she sighed in a laughing manner, taking the shotglass and, with a grimace, downing the bitter herbal drink within it.  "I'm suffering from a different malady, I fear, one known simply as age."  She smiled again, a gentle one as she rolled her tongue around in order to wipe away the unpleasant taste, and continued, "I've lived so long my health will naturally falter and slowly fade away."

        "Nonsense, Mother," Ami replied stoutly, her face lit momentarily with a deep rooted fear that was wiped free of her face as soon as it flickered into being.  "Even if you are getting old, it still makes sense to take care of illnesses when they come.  That's made from a type of herb that purges the bad humors in your body, and you'll only feel a mild headache while you work."  With that said, she punctually jabbed the cork back into the tube and tucked it back on the shelf, cradled betwixt two other anonymous bottles, and accepted the shotglass' return to place it in a spot of honor in case it was needed at a later time.

        "Never mind, then," Makoto smiled, leaning over the counter to peck her daughter on the cheek and tapping her nose in a sensible manner, and planted her hands on the small pair of shoulders shrouded by a dark blue shirt.  "Now, I can hear the children outside the door again, and I do believe they're anxious for a bit more of that knowledge you've somehow gathered."  Steering the young woman around the edge of the bar, she gave her an orienting push toward the door and slid behind the now abandoned counter, shaking the drained shotglass with a foul glare at the lamplight flickering along its curved side.  

        "Yes, Mother," she said automatically, brushing her hands off by reflex and running one through the simple wave in her dark hair, a fingernail snagging on a small tangle.  Freeing it, she yawned and shook her head determinedly, slipping a bright, nurturing smile on her lips as she twisted the wooden door open.  The hinges squawked in rusty irritation and a decently sized group of small children tumbled in, instantly pouring questions and protests from their mouths about their last impromptu lesson.  "Hello, Galid," she bent to kiss the offered mouth of a shy boy near four years, "I've missed you, too.  Sharjon, Calister," she acknowledged, tousling twin heads of bright golden hair.

        "Ami," a rasping masculine voice interrupted her pattern of greeting the children and she lifted her head, surprised, to see the leathery face of one of the elder men in the village.  "Might I speak with your mother?" he asked politely, fingers with the wrinkled skin drawn tight about the bones encircling the smoothed head of a gnarled cane.  "It is of some importance."

        She nodded, hesitantly, after an irrational sense of something unusually apprehensive flashed down the causeways of her veins, and stepped back, the children hurrying to group behind her.  Galid peeked around the cloth-covered swell of her shin and watched with some curiosity as the old man stepped tenderly across the threshold, a shallow wince contorting his tightened features at the strain of exertion.  "Mother," she called, fingers touching the point of her chin as she waited patiently for the woman to turn from her work behind the counter preparing drink.  "The Whittler is here to speak with you."

        Makoto immediately switched her gaze firmly from the mixing motions of her long hands, studying passively the expression on his face before glancing sharply at her daughter.  "Ami," she began pleasantly, her shoulders ceasing the telltale jerking motions of work, "would you take the children into the den?  I need to be alone with the Whittler."  

        Several of the children gasped in shocked delight at the rare invitation into the rooms waiting above, where their beloved tutor lived, and they quickly grew impatient to see the certainly exotic treasures she kept there.  Images of the marvelous things she spoke of filled each young mind, and sparkling pairs of eyes were eagerly melted with her own until she gave them an encouraging smile.  With whoops and series of cheers, the small bodies took little time racing to the curling staircase placed in a corner behind the bar, swerving around the few tables and edges in their path in their quest to clamber up as noisily as possible.  

        Pulling a reluctant Galid up in her embrace, biting her lip for a second at the unexpected weight of his slender frame, Ami shifted him and he twirled his hands into her hair, resting his cheek on her shoulder.  "Don't worry, Galid," she spoke delicately, stepping with great care in an echo of the path the others had chosen, "it's all right."  He stayed silent, closing eyelids and keeping his secret worries to himself, and she gave a tentative smile to her mother, hoping for a like response.

        As she disappeared up the stairs, slippered feet vanishing in the first curve along the stairwell, Makoto's smiled died, dropping from her face as a serious dread took over her emotions.  "What's wrong in the winds, Whittler?" she asked quietly, shifting away from the bar and taking a seat at the table he was gingerly lowering himself near.  She folded her hands together in a worried movement, then unfolded them as the dread formed a lead ball in her gut, fixing her strong gaze on him.

        "I have always been one of the strongest supporters," he began wearily, hand sliding somewhat down the length of the carved wood he held, "of Ami's humanity, as you know.  I never believed she was a monster from the sea," he spat the term out with the anger a grandfather feels for an injured descendant's attacker.  He sighed deeply, an aching, rattling sound that reverberated throughout his body, then offered her a weak look.  "I think I might have been wrong all these years."

        "Damn it, Whittler," she hissed, instinctively protective of the girl she had raised for the past twelve years, her forest eyes narrowing in obvious threat, "if that's all you've come to say to me, then you can just le--"

        "Not a monster," he interrupted with a rare lack of patience, tracing his hand back up to the rounded head of his cane as he studied her growing fury, "but something else that comes from the sea.  I know the slave traders have come through here in years gone by, asking about the lovely child with long eyelashes and skin like a pearl.  No one has ever seen anything like her before, and that is what is placing her in danger.  Commodities are rising once more, and even pirates are beginning to deal in the trade of slaves."

        He took a breath, bringing the air shakily into his lungs for strength, and forced the remainder of the words from his mouth.  "You have heard of the sirens in the eastern sea, Makoto.  The oldest legends hold they have dark hair that curves near the ends like the ocean waves do, with pale skin whiter than the inside of a worn shell.  They will come for her, and you will not be able to protect her.  No one will.

        "No one," he continued as rage faded in place of an old grief over her sturdy features, "that lives in the village may protect her."

        "So what am I supposed to do, Whittler?" she asked in a haunted voice, swallowing thickly and crossing her fingers together once more as the dread engulfed her heart with its dark cruelty.  "Pay a pirate hunter to take her away from here until it is safe?"

        An oddly youthful smile twitched faintly at the corners of his thickly lined mouth, the deep curls gradually lifting as he stared seriously at her, his eyes luminescent in the blazing lamps' light from their perches behind the counter.  "Yes," he answered evenly.

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        The tears came in unwanted whispers of wetness as she stared emptily at the moon hanging as an opal of softest silver, the food from dinner clumped painfully in her stomach while her mother's words raced through her mind torturously.  "She's sending me away," she wept into her pillow, knowing the pain felt within her was justified.  "And I don't even know why she is!"  They slid down her cheeks in glowing stickiness, moistening the fabric beneath her face as she turned it so her face was obscured by the soft billowing.  

        Her breathing came raggedly, tapping at her chest in sharp daggers of betrayed pain until she could bear it no longer and she sat up in her bed, the folds of the blanket falling from her collar bone to her waist, swathing into a sea of cotton green.  Prying fingertips fought with the rows of tiny buttons lining her pajama top and she picked them loose one by one, shedding the stifling cloth and tossing it out the window with her pajama's matching pants.  She clambered, still crying, onto the windowsill and hooked her fingers into the whitewashed latticework trailing down the backside of the tavern that faced the crashing ocean, picking out a way to the brush below her.  Landing carefully on her feet, pulling her palms free of the vines creeping up the carefully nailed wood, she scooped up her pajamas and, tugging the pants over her thighs and small hips first, jerked on the unbuttoned top.  Taking no time to button the rows of miniscule light, she took off for the murmuring tide, feet passing with skillful coordination through the ever-shifting sands as Ami drew nearer to her goal.

        Letting the waters soak over her encrusted feet for a blissful moment of pause, she held her hands out from her sides, closing her wettened tempest eyes as the wind teased over the cloth wrapped under the twisting top.  It bound her chest to her abdomen in a modest protection, and she began walking forward, the gurgling, welcoming waters climbing up her shin, to her waist.  Standing in the deep water, she grew still, dropping her hands into the salted water, and picked out dots along the horizon courtesy of the full moon's brilliant light.  

        "A ship," she gasped, spotting a dot near enough to identify as a large boat, a foreboding black flag erected on its main mast.  Anxiety crawled into place and she turned about in the water, reluctantly slogging back to shore and running quicker than she had to the water's edge.  Up the latticework she yanked herself, straining muscles unused to athletic motions, and tumbled to the hardwood floor of her room, picking herself up and exiting her room.  Her mother's bedroom door, a few steps to the left of her own, was thankfully open, and Ami burst into her room, gasping and ignorant of her own disheveled, sopping person.

        "Dearie?" Makoto managed to get out just as she cried, "Pirates!"

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        **Feedback:  **I love to hear what my readers have to say.  (Especially when it aids me in becoming a better writer – that's always welcome.)

        **Disclaimer:  **Alas, it's true – I don't own One Piece or Sailor Moon.

        **Notes:  **Yes, it is a short chapter, but it sets the story up, which is necessary.  If it seems to be moving fast, it's mostly because I want to get the ball rolling as soon as I can (whereas 'Requiem for Rain' is still rolling a bit sluggishly).  What to expect in chapter two?  Roronoa Zoro, pirates, death, and other fun stuff.  Yay noodles!

      **Replies:  **Ah, Myst Lady (I hope this chapter was all right; do you think so?), don't worry about One Piece.  If you can, stop by your local bookstore and pick up Viz's English translation of 'Shonen Jump'; the fourth issue should still be out, and it has the 'OP' chapters that wrap up Zoro's introduction.  The Japanese volumes can be found at www.sasugabooks.com.  :]  I sympathize with the problem finding Ami SMXOvers…and the fact that many writers have mutated Usagi into something she isn't.  Many thanks, also, to Devils for reviewing (isn't One Piece fun?).  I'm glad you didn't find any impurities in my writing…I would have kept the fairy tale narrative style, but I don't normally write in such a way (and when I do, it inevitably cuts out details I want).  But, 'A Jealous Lover' was kinda purty, wasn't it?


	4. Siren: Escape of a Demon

**Siren in the Deep**

by Purple Mongoose/PallaPlease

**Escape of a Demon**

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        He considered darkly the unexpected difficulty of his chosen bounty, angry in part at himself for failing to break free of the men who had been hiding in the shadows, and, in the same token, wryly amused at the dulled color of his swords lit by the moonlight streaming through the grilled skylight of the hold.  Knowing he could see the trio of sheathed blades carelessly tossed to the floor over the expanse of his temporary prison had a dual quality to it: on one hand, it would take little effort to retrieve them once he got free of the ropes binding him to the wall.  On the other, it meant his captors were unusually stupid, or very lacking in foresight, and this made it even more painful being captured by them.  

        Leaning forward, he tested the strength of his bonds, having woken only a few minutes before after a bout of unconsciousness he had not wished for, and learned his hands were closer to the top of his head than he thought.  His elbows were crooked, allowing the ropes threaded along the heavyset holes in the wall room to pull forward a little, and he frowned in concentration.  He lifted one boot from the floor, planting it firmly on the thick wall and channeling the majority of his weight down it, levering his other boot beside it and working them apart.  Applying his weight equally to both legs, he kept them a shoulder's distance away from one another and, gradually, inched himself up the wall, fingers curling apprehensively and finding no way to undo the knots by entangled hand.  

        Steadying his body, keeping his feet stiffly pushed to the straight boards lining his shoulder blades, he found he could reach the two knots with his mouth, ignoring the uncomfortable brush of the bristles on his lips.  He clamped his teeth over one of the jutting curls and chewed for a moment to soften the cording braid, tugging pensively with his jaw and biting back a groan when it stubbornly refused to budge.  Working it for a moment more, glancing across the dark hold to see if he could spot a weakness or latch-door, he pulled again with his teeth and nearly smashed the back of his head on the wall as it came loose, dropped free from his incisors.  He spat out, quietly, the strings caught on his tongue and in his teeth, grimacing where he could feel ones that stayed resolutely, and returned to his chore.

        He forced his tongue through the opening, shuddering at the scrape of the itchy tendrils on his mouth, widening it further and grasping it with his teeth once more, jerking free the loop and removing his face from the binding while the first knot unraveled swiftly.  A brief disorientation brought by one of his boots slipping quickly down the wall was put to an end when he snapped his knee back up, pushing harder in repentance.  Tugging his left hand free was a simple matter, then, and he nipped with his teeth, prying with fingertips, until the second knot reluctantly was undone.  He wrapped his fingers around the end of the rope, holding tightly to it as his body threatened to buckle to the floor now that he was not being supported from above, and silently dropped his feet, catching his equilibrium before he released the rope.

        His wrists were numbed, miniscule stabs of pulsing needles tracing along his nerves as the blood flow slowly resumed, trickling down the insides of his wrists, and he massaged the coarsened skin there, pushing his thumb over the large arteries to stimulate activity.  The temptation to drift into a pleasanter sleep was strong, and he closed his eyes, hard, in a ridding manner that proved relatively successful, except for the growing desire to keep his eyes closed.  

        He crossed his arms several times in the front, arching them over his shoulders to stretch the taut muscles, and forced his eyes to stay open, rolling his head from one side to the other and popping the vertebrae with a series of cracks.  Crossing the floor, he checked the black bandana tied on his bicep directly below the rust-colored hem of his shirt, knowing the staining blood had come from a mild gash on his person and a much larger wound he had given to one of the pirates.  He knelt by the trio of swords, red, black, and white hilts exposed in the grated well of silver light piercing the dank shades of the hold, and he expertly picked them up from the floor; in a single fluid motion, he slipped each sheath through a sturdy loop sewn onto the leg of his dark pants, securing them and finding comfort in the familiar lopsided weight.

        His most important goal at the time being accomplished, he set his sights on questing out an exit of some sort, easily foregoing the question of whether or not he might be able to use the barred skylight above his head.  A tall man he might be, but he was by no means a giant, and it would certainly take a giant, as well as a ladder, to reach it.  Feeling along the wall his swords had been abandoned by, he felt around each smooth line between the airtight boards, prodding in case a line was unusually wide, and he was content with smirking dangerously as he felt a thicker border.  Fingers that continued the seeking motions dipped lower, sliding over the bulky, cooled metal of a hefty lock and twisting at it in curiosity only to be disappointed.

        The matter was easily remedied, however, as he drew one of the three blades at his side and complacently positioned it over the lock, sweeping the honed edge in a downward motion and thereby slicing off the lock.  It clattered to the hold's deck with a noisy cacophony of rings and jostled thumps, rolling about in an awkward circle as it slowly dwindled to a hesitant stop.  He merely sheathed the sword, fully aware he was a bit more prepared than he had been before, and calmly undid the bandana around his arm, tucking it over his naturally lime hair.  Knotting it at the back with a practiced tie, he exhaled in preparation and twisted all three swords from their clothed sheaths, placing one's slender hilt in his mouth and biting down with agile strength.

        Roronoa Zoro was free to expend vengeance of the bloodiest kind on those unfortunate enough to be on the same ship as he.

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        The noisy drumming of hammers striking small nails was slowly fading from the town, most windows having been boarded up carefully and locks double-checked at various times during the past two days as the pirate ship drew closer and closer.  Ami stood in the layered, thinly spread dust of the wide road leading casually to the tranquil ocean lit like a pool of sapphires by the morning sun, and watched quietly the unmoving shape of the ship, wondering why it had stopped its progress.  As it was, the ship had come uncomfortably near the shore, still a respectable distance that she only felt the unpleasant anxiety of its halted motions.  "Why aren't you coming?" she murmured, allowing the first breeze of the morn to limply tousle her dark locks; it soon dwindled into a stifling nothing.  She, of course, did not want pirates to come to the small village, but she felt it would be easier than simply waiting continuously as it loomed, frozen, in the waves.  

        Shivering in the summer heat, she crossed her arms over her chest, wriggling her toes in irritation at the grimy dust lining her bared feet, and turned to walk back to the tavern positioned at the peak of the last hill before the road dove down to the glittering ocean.  "Mother," she called to the tall figure of her concerned mother where she waited restlessly in the opened door, "I don't think it's coming any closer."  

        "I almost wish they'd come already," responded Makoto with a forcibly bright smile, the kind with false bravado in it meant to reassure others.  "It'd be better than just sitting around and knowing they could come at any time."  Sighing, she stepped aside and ushered her small daughter into the lamp-lit room, the small squares of the windows boarded over by thick wood and the flimsy crimson curtains tugged together.  Little natural light pierced the confines, and the groups of people uneasily clustered within it were thrust into flame-traced shadows, faces hidden and obscured by the darkness. 

        Feeling the hovering lack of comfort filtering amongst the villagers who had opted to leave their homes, Ami stayed still, lacing her fingers through one another and holding her clasped hands at her hips.  A few children glanced up and, strangely subdued for they understood something bad was present, they crooked tiny fingers at her in shy waves.  She nodded with a soft smile in recognition of their actions, and took her hands apart to touch Galid's arm as she strode past the round table he had chosen to sit at with his father.  He gave her a deeply worried expression, mirroring the pained one on his father's without fully realizing it, and latched his chubby fingers into the loose hem of her red jerkin, the sleeves brushing the inside of her wrists.  

        "Ami, can I sit with you?" he asked in a tiny voice, shooting his father a pleading look.  The man nodded, using the same forced smile her own mother had felt obligated to use, and Galid hopped off his chair, encircling her thigh with one arm and hooking his other arm around the sleeve he had previously clutched.  She glanced at his father and gave him a helpless look, feeling relief at his dismissing gesture and pulling the small boy gently with her to a corner booth. 

        "Here we go, Galid," she said with all the gentility she could muster, and he released her to clamber onto the flat wooden seat, wriggling down its length to the corner.  "Are you okay?" continued she, sitting beside him and folding her arms over the rectangular table.  He fiddled with the curtain's folds, a small stream of light touching between cracks in the boards hastily erected over the cut window, and looked down, then at her.

        "Kinda scared," he admitted, whispering lowly, peeking behind the curtain and through the uneven cracks.  "Nobody'll tell me nothing 'bout the big boat," he added, twisting his hand in the fabric and facing the girl, deep eyes wrinkled into frightened questions sparkling with the light behind the counter.  "Is it bringing bad things?"

        She thought for a few moments, unsure how to respond, and opened her mouth, closing it and sucking a little on her lower lip as she considered his question.  "Pirates," said a familiar voice behind her shoulder, and she curved her frame away from the sheltering semicircle it had formed around the compact child.  Makoto smiled wanly, patting flour-dotted hands over the spotted green of her apron and leaning to kiss her daughter briefly on the cheek.  She sat on the seat opposing theirs, slipping down it until she was squarely facing both the pale face of Ami and the anxious one of the favored child, his head bobbing higher as he scooted his legs up to sit on his knees.  "The ship has pirates on it."

        "Pirates," he breathed, the anxious confusion giving way to romanticized expectation, his face transforming from his usual insecurity to an eagerly boyish expression.  "Are pirates really coming to our village?  With buried treasure an' everything?"  He all but bounced in his seat, gripping Ami's arm and beaming a gaze that switched from mother to daughter in excitement.

        "Yes," Makoto smiled at him, her brown eyebrows lifting with her cheeks as her lips curved, "pirates are coming to our village.  But mind that not all pirates are as fun as the tales might have you believe."  She straightened and adopted a serious look, laughing inside at the twin features of intrigue facing her, speaking carefully, "Many pirates do horrible things, Galid."  She knew it would embarrass her daughter for her undivided attention to be revealed, and so she kept from saying her name, though she had to bite her tongue with a secret smile.  "You shouldn't think them to be a good thing, you know."

        "I don't trust pirates at all," Ami declared in a quiet voice, flushing a little at her mother's amused look, and she smiled in rueful acknowledgement of her interest in the subject.  "When you get older," she looked at the rapt, shining face of Galid, who smiled at her and ducked his reddening cheeks into her sleeve, "you'll be able to hear about what they do to people.  They're brutal."

        "All things from the sea have a dual nature, though," interjected her graceful mother, sprawling her moderately wise eye over the pair of youths, one nearing her womanhood, the other not yet the age of four.  "Ocean beings can be either ferocious and deadly," and she paused, smiling distantly at a bittersweet memory, "or they can be joyous and gentle.  Some pirates, few though they are, are explosions of sound and laughter, taking everyone in with celebration and good will.  But you ought never make the mistake of thinking all are as kind."  Her smile faded, drifting into a sadder reflection of things gained and lost, and she shared a soft whisper with them, "And just like the tide, when they come, they must leave in time."

        Ami studied her face and, feeling Galid's curiosity merging with her own wondering, asked, wanting to know, "Mother, have pirates come here before?"

        "Once," came the answer, and Makoto's lips twirled up into a gentle smile.  "Led by a captain of dark red hair and one arm, the other missing from just above the elbow.  They were a rowdy group, and they only stayed a year before moving on to Grand Line," and here Galid gasped, recognizing the dark name associated with seas ridden by cruel things.  "He was a kind captain," she added absently, smiling one more time before standing and granting another kiss to Ami's turned cheek.  "Now, I need to feed these poor souls, dearie, and could you keep an eye on Galid for his father?"

        "Of course, Mother," Ami nodded, watching her mother's retreating back with bemused wonder, and she returned to staring at the fascinated Galid.  He grinned at her, an unbidden recovery from his typical shyness, and he pushed the curtain aside, pressing one eye to the lowest crack.  "Do you see something?" she asked without expecting an answer, shifting her shins onto the wood and leaning over him to peek through a higher crack.  The brilliant morning sun made it difficult to see little other than the glorious brightness that drowned out colors and shapes, and she blinked several times, hard, readjusting her position and squinting.  A dim shape was visible near the base of the hill, one that was both formless and blotted into a splotch of black, and she frowned minutely, trying to decide if it was one of the trees scattered in the loose soil near the sands or something entirely else.

        "Wow," he murmured, gasping in delight, and then he had slid beneath the table, tiny form easily lending itself to his chosen task.  She whirled around, nearly falling on her knees, and grasped futilely at the back of his sleeveless tunic, smacking her chin on the table painfully.  Tasting the copper liquid of blood trickling along the curves of her tongue, she moved to stand and follow him swiftly as he lithely ran for the windowless door.  

        His father reacted, startled, and demanded without thought, "Galid!  What are you doing?"  He abandoned the cup of thick tea he held and the newspaper spread out over the circled table, craning around the back of his chair to stare at his son, who paused for a moment at the door.

        "I'm gonna see the pirate!" he cried and twisted the doorknob, vanishing into the gold shafts of sunlight.  

        "Galid!" Ami yelled, somehow managing to avoid tripping over his father's chair as the man bolted upright, his face tightening with horrible fear.  "Galid, don't you dare take one step further!"  It was pointless, she realized as she left the tavern, escaping the preventive grip of the men inside who were aware of the folly of exiting.  She covered her eyes at the brightness, and when his father did not follow, she knew the men had restrained him, trying to keep him from the suicide of facing a hostile pirate.

        "Galid!" she screamed again, staggering a little in the direction of the downward slope as her pupils adjusted to the sudden influx of grand light.  Shaking her head determinedly, she pushed herself onward, digging her heels into the dirt for balance as she went down the growing slope, and she spotted the now walking figure of the small child, his head tilted as if in deeper fascination than earlier.  The spot at the bottom of the hill, she now saw, was moving up at a steady pace toward them, and it was definitely a man, though one clad in unusual garb.  "Galid, come back here!" she continued desperately, while absorbing his presence, one both menacing and yet not alarming.

        The tow-haired boy obediently stopped, shuffling around to face her and giving her a characteristically worried expression.  "He doesn't look like a pirate," he confessed as she jogged to him, kneeling before his tiny figure and pulling him protectively to her.  By no means was she an athlete so much as she was an intellect, and even the adrenaline-powered run had left her feeling a bit winded; the side of the hill leading from her window was steeper and therefore shorter, making it easier to climb down.  "Is he a bad man?"

        The tall man stopped perhaps twenty feet below them, or angled away from them, she would figure the semantics out later, and he had a trio of what seemed to be swords clasped to his thigh.  The sunlight made it difficult for her to tell if he was watching them, and so she kept Galid as well as herself very still, making sure to keep her eyes staring straight at him.  A black bandana wrapped around his head and the green haramaki sash wrapped widely around his waist struck her as being something she should recognize, but she kept from worrying too hard about it, setting a part of her brain aside to mull over it as she watched him undo the bandana.  Mint green hair was exposed to the day and she loosened her grip on Galid enough for him to twist about in her arms, watching with great curiosity as the man calmly set aside the small bag he held and tied firmly the bandana over his arm.  

        It had to be done, she supposed, as she called out in a quavering voice, mind riddled with images of whispered darkness and spilt blood, "Who are you?"  The words hung in the air with a heady finality, sealing their fate one way or another, and the man quite obviously looked at her and the boy still held in her arms, tanned skin set to glowing by the sun's amber rays.  Swallowing deeply, as if a thick swab of cotton had swollen in her throat, she pushed out to the lean danger, "Are you a pirate or someone else?"

        He lifted the knotted bag and, giving her one more piercing look, quickly pulled free the heavy knot, limber fingers working between the loops and curls.  A note of dread sounded sharply in her head as a single name came free from the shadowy bonds of forgetfulness, her eyes widening while her mouth dried and her lungs grew heavy, and he spoke in a deep voice.  "I am Roronoa Zoro," and she jerked Galid's face to her, hugging his features into the dip of her inner shoulder, knowing all ready what he was reaching for within the bag's swollen interior.  She saw one swift glimpse of the severed requirement for collecting a bounty, the red-streaked gleam of exposed bone, before she averted her eyes, one hand weaving through the delicate blonde hairs on the boy's head.

        "My apologies," he said bluntly and she slowly looked at him, strands of blue-lighted hair tossed clumsily over her deep blue eyes.  He stuffed what he held in a bloodstained hand back into the bag, swiftly retying the bag's woven mouth and tossing it over his rust-shaded shoulder, the sleeve's peak stained with old crimson liquid.  Ami lifted her head higher, a single strand of hair lining the lower swell of her mouth, and she forced her gaze to remain strong as he crossed the distance between the three, although she felt a frightened lump in her throat.

        He crouched beside her, obsidian eyes focused on her, and a thousand by-word-of-mouths stretched through her mind as a string of blackened pearls around a cruel queen's neck.

        _"I heard he killed a man for--"_

_        "He's coated in blood!  Why, he's slain more men than any pirate--"_

_        "--and they say he's forged swords from precious metals stolen from--"_

_        "--a demon!  That Roronoa Zoro is a damned monster from hell!"_

Galid made a snorting sound, snapping her free of the clawed rumors, and she, perplexed, looked down to see one of the most dangerous bounty hunters alive had poked the child squarely in his ribs, sparking the tickle reflex every young child seemed to carry.  "Hey, kid," he rumbled and she thought he spoke to the boy she clutched to her chest until he gave her a penetrating glance, "I think small one here needs to breathe."  He jabbed a thumb at the back of his head and she gasped in mortified surprise, cheeks flushing with scarlet puffs as she let go of the tiny figure.

        "Oofta!" commented Galid as he stumbled back, falling onto the pair of large knees behind him and simultaneously sneezing violently, his head jerking forward a little.  Staring up into the formidable face all but glaring at him, he screwed up his courage and coughed weakly, "I hadta sneeze."  As if to make sure the full implication of his words came through, he clamped one small hand over his nose and echoed the previous impulse with a more shallow sneeze.

        The man known as Roronoa Zoro grinned, then, a quirky little expression of dry humor, and strong hands encircled the much smaller ones of Galid, quickly and efficiently yanking him to his feet.  Startled, he stumbled once more, this time wrapping his thin arms about her trim waist and catching his balance awkwardly.  He pulled away a little, met the hundreds of bewildered emotions crossing his beloved friend's face with her split pink lips, and chirruped happily, "He's neat!"

        "Out of the mouths of babes," the clover-haired man remarked dryly, and he stood, sweeping the dust off the front of his black pants and holding his one clean hand out for her to grasp and pull herself up with.  Hesitating and still feeling twinges of fear, she did so, pulling her hand from his far larger one as soon as she was on her bare feet.  "And now that I've given you a crappy first impression, take me to the collection office."  His tone offered no argument or reply, and the grin mingled with sarcastic amusement quickly fell to its premature death.

        She murmured to Galid for him to go back to the tavern and stay there, and then stood straighter, releasing him and watching him run back in a short run to the featureless building naked, even, of a sign proclaiming its dominance as tavern.  "Go up the hill," she said in a careful voice, making sure to avoid eye contact, "and past the first three buildings, starting with the one directly past the top of the hill.  The collection office is the fourth one, and it's painted sort of gold."  That said, she hurried to follow after Galid's vanished form, clasping her arms around her middle as she jogged for fear her lungs would burst from her chest as the worry ate into a threatening position.

-

        On general principle, Yaters Jol was fond of his job, simple as it was, and the simplicity of it was what had drawn him to it in the first place; never once had it let him down and brought complications to his admittedly bland lifestyle.  The people who lived in the village used a barter system when they wanted goods, nearly each family supported by a store of some sort that had periodic bursts of growth whenever a ship docked at port.  While he was not anywhere close to elated about the proximity of the pirate ship, he also knew the collection office's stores would be plundered anyway, so he went to work, set the inside of the store up by lighting the array of large lamps along the walls, and left the bounty images without taking them off after a moment of thought.  His store's wide window, one of four glass windows in the village, had been boarded over the first day on both outside and inside, for the glass was a rare thing for their small town to use in anything other than a lamp or essential commodities.

        Somehow, he had not truly expected anyone to throw the door open and stride in, and he was left staring when someone did so, his glasses frozen in the hand he was using his shirt tail to sweep over the bifocal panes.  Hastily thumbing his spectacles back on, wrinkling his nose to obtain better purchase and thereby clearer vision, he asked timidly, "Yes?  May I help you?"  The man opposing him had hair the color of wild mint and a slightly irritated look on his wind tanned face, giving Jol the sort of expression that informed him plainly that he wouldn't have entered if he didn't want assistance of some sort.

        A marginally heavy bag was dumped onto the counter, a hand-done knot smacking with a dulled thump against the polished wood, and he stared at it just as blankly as he had the man, unsure of what to make the clothed contents out as.  "Bounty," the man said brusquely, and he slowly peeked up and over the edges of his bifocals, quickly spotting details he had bypassed glimpsing before.  "Pirate El'jone, his crew's still out on the ship in the harbor.  They won't be coming to shore, so I recommend you send some men out to get them if you don't want them escaping out to sea."

        "Oh," said Jol faintly, his face paling considerably and a bead of sweat dotting the shaggy brown hair receding day by day from his forehead.  "A bounty."  The lined green sash wrapped expertly around the man's waist was a note added to the perception of the ebony bandana tied about the man's arm, and the three swords added a sense of triumphant alarm to his mind.  Snapping his head up, he opened his mouth a few times in an attempt to regain the voice that had apparently taken voluntary leave of him.  "R-Roronoa Zoro?" he finally squeaked, the bead of sweat dripping down the curves of his face as another set popped up from the higher pores.

        "I think I'd like the bounty now," replied the bounty hunter with something verging on temper-accented impatience, his jaw working irritatedly.  "If you don't mind," and he gave him a particularly nasty smile.

        "Oh, of course, yes, yes," the man behind the counter stammered, hastily shifting his attention to the bundle and clawing the knot apart with trembling fingers that continued to clumsily fail at his efforts.  A moment passed with him sweating and the man glowering, until the bag's mouth came open in a fall of whispering burlap.  He steeled his nerves and gingerly pinched the cloth apart, smelling the strong odor of sickly sweet blood and spotting the rather grimly decapitated head, and he smashed the bag's mouth closed.  "Are you going to kill me?" he asked in a rather faint voice.

        "No," he replied slowly, the sort of tone that suggested he was answering an extraordinarily stupid question, "I'm not going to kill you."  

        "Because, please, I don't want to die," Jol continued, begging and wringing his hands together while imagining all the gruesome things certainly about to befall him, "I-I have a wife, Margie, and we don't have any kids, but I can't die, why would you kill me?"

        "I'm not," the man enunciated clearly, almost grinding his teeth from the angry impatience tinting his face, "going - to - kill - you."

        "You can take all the money I have," he felt he had to add, the compulsion melting with the veritable wave of sweat cascading down his face, "just, I'm begging you, don't kill me, I--urk!"

        The man's hand tightened its grip around the front of Jol's collar, twisting and pulling the cloth up in a manner that was rather effective in shutting him up, his breathing stifled by the presence of the knuckles pressing in a manner that was blatantly intimidating against the skin right beneath his jugular.  "I am not going to goddamn kill you!" he roared, and Jol squeaked a second time.  "I just want the bounty, and I don't need your breed of idiot making it harder!"

        Jol came overwhelmingly close to sobbing, pleading again without putting thought behind his words, "I don't want to die!"  This came just as a shrill woman's voice demanded from the back, "Jol, if I have to come up there, so help me, I will personally ensure you--"

        He made an incredible recovery, swiftly pulling himself free of the bounty hunter's grip, which was somewhat similar to being clamped around the chest and neck by an astonishingly large steel brace, and he straightened his glasses.  His face grew dry, though still clammy from the perspiration, and he was the image of prosperous business, quickly referencing the spiraled book of bounties listed in the weekly mailed book meant to determine if the head brought in was indeed the pirate claimed, if the head had already been claimed by someone else, and how many bellies it was worth.  "Pirate Captain El'jone, worth two million bellies," he said coolly and the man gave him the same look of doubting his sanity he had before, taking the coins Jol placed into a moderate cloth bag.

        "And what an exaggeration that was," he muttered, tucking the bag of coins into a sufficiently camouflaged pocket in his pants.  "Couldn't fight his way out of a bag, the idiot.  Which way to the village tavern?"

        "Big building at the top of the hill," he replied automatically to the bounty hunter with a short temper, who nodded and, bare of anything in his hands or over his shoulder, shoved his way through the door.  Once the door clicked back into place, banishing away the remaining presence of the swordsman, Jol slid to the floor, breathing hard and wiping at the sweat that returned to his pudgy features.  "I thought for sure he was going to kill me," he shuddered.

---

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        **Feedback:  **Oo!  For me?  Yay!  *huggles readers*

        **Disclaimer:  **I own a Zoro plushie and a Mercury plushie, but not the characters themselves.

        **Notes:  **Not sure I like how this chapter came out…but I did like Zoro talking to the shopkeeper.  :]  Oh, and just so you know, when people in the One Piece world have more than one name (which isn't often, according to character bios…), it's written in the Japanese form, with last name first.  Usually.

        **Replies:  **_Bloody Vixen_, who I left out by accident last time; my apologies, ma'am.  And I used Makoto/Lita, too, but this fic is supposed to focus only on two characters.  Although I am tossing around the idea of an OP/SM fic with Sanji and Rei…_Myst Lady_, many thanks, always love your flattery *winks*, and it is a pity that there aren't many Ami fics around (and I do like Usagi, but Naoko Takeuchi's Usagi and the Usagi of some talented writers out there, as most people turn her into a serious, all-powerful Supergirl in the crossover section, thereby killing the sweetly innocent girl that she is in continuity).  Glad you like 'Requiem for Rain,' I know I certainly do.  _Mistress of Ice_, who I now must glomp for being such a doll, as always.  (Please don't call me –sama!  My Muse – who does /no/ Muse-like things – will hurt me…and I wanna be –chan!  "cause…I'm weird like that…yeah…I'll shut up now…)  And last, but not least, _Devils Little Doll_, I'm trying to keep up the good work (am I succeeding?  Please say yes!  *proceeds to beg*).  I'm really pleased you like it!  :]  Everyone's support is appreciated, and you all get chibi-Zoro dolls!  Even the people who have no idea who he is…*sweatdrops*

        **One Piece:  ***insert hefty German accent, because I am /not/ typing it out*  Ah, yes…because I want my readers to at least know what Roronoa Zoro looks like.  Both pictures are hosted at Rum, Buggery & the Lash, which isn't the best site to go to for character info and such forth, but it's one of the funniest One Piece sites out there.  (For the best info on-line, check out , also known as Destination Paradise.)

        The first pic is at , and it's an anime pic of the original crew (before Chopper enters and all). The guy with the green hair in the lower right hand corner is Roronoa Zoro (without his bandana on his head).

        : manga pic with the same characters, plus Chopper, and it has Zoro looking rather pissed off at Sanji (the blonde guy smokin').


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